Practical Application
by runaway ballista
Summary: CGH,SSP; All Ken'ichirou would like to do is have a nice, quiet practice, but Shizuka is intent on teaching him another lesson.


I wanted to write a bit more about the OCs I created as Hayate's parents -- Ken'ichirou and Shizuka -- when they were younger. I'd say this probably takes place around 30 to 40 years preseries. Enjoy!

**Practical Application_  
_**

Whenever possible, Gekkou Ken'ichirou preferred to practice his swordplay alone. It wasn't that he didn't like to hear his father's advice, or his mother's encouragement – it was just so much easier to focus when it was just him and his sword in the cool spring air. There were no distractions out here, even if he was in one of the public training fields just to escape the crowded feeling of the yard at the Gekkou house; there was just him and his sword, one and at peace, as they cut through the air together…

"So, you're a sword user?"

The sudden, unfamiliar voice broke Ken'ichirou's concentration almost immediately. Eyes still closed, he clenched his jaw briefly. So much for the empty training field… Maybe if he ignored whoever it was, he thought, they'd go away. He steadied his grip on the sword, raised it to shoulder level…

"Oi, I'm talking to you, you know."

The speaker was a young woman, but Ken'ichirou was trying as hard as he could not to focus on her voice. The focus was on the sword…on the sword, on its weight and its balance…

"It's rude to just ignore someone."

His tactic wasn't working at all. Ken'ichirou's eyes snapped open to see a young woman standing before him, approximately the same age as him, but possibly a little younger – she had long, thick dark hair tied back into a ponytail, but a few rebellious strands had escaped to frame her face. She was lithe, almost lanky – well built – but what stood out most about her was her eyes. Wild and almond-shaped, they had an almost feral light to them. Her eyes alone made her presence a surprisingly intimidating one for someone her age. Ken'ichirou thought she looked familiar – he'd probably seen her around the village, maybe on a mission, but he couldn't place her name.

"Can I help you?" he asked, more or less politely, because however irritated he might have been to have his training interrupted, he was a well-mannered young man. He lowered his sword.

"Why do you use a weapon like that?" The girl didn't ask his name, or even introduce herself. "It's difficult to use – sure, it's light and it cuts like a scythe, but it requires so much concentration to use effectively. Not to mention it's a bit of a high maintenance weapon, and it's so easily damaged."

The young woman had already effectively insulted his fighting style and his family traditions, and he still didn't know her name. Luckily – for both of them – Ken'ichirou was a young man of much patience. He kept his sword unsheathed, a subtle comment on the fact that she was interrupting his training. "It does take a lot of skill to use," he admitted, "but that would be why I'm, ah, training with it right now. If used effectively, it's a deadly weapon."

"Sure," she said, appearing not to catch the hint – or maybe she just didn't care. "But who wants to depend on a weapon in the heat of battle?"

"I take it, then, that you prefer to fight with your hands."

She grinned – wildly and ferally, and her eyes glinted. "They're so much more reliable. You can't snap a man's neck with a sword." She held up her hands, cracking her knuckles. Her hands were a somewhat large, with knuckles that stood out on long-fingered hands. It was then that her comment clicked in Ken'ichirou's clan – a clear clue, if he paid any attention to the other families of the village.

"You're from the Magami clan, aren't you?" he asked. The Magami family was known for its hand-to-hand combat techniques – it was said that the Magami style had six separate ways to strangle a man, though Ken'ichirou had no way of knowing if the rumor was true. He wasn't sure he wanted to find out firsthand.

She grinned at him again, showing teeth this time. Ken'ichirou couldn't tell if she was trying to intimidate him, or if it was just in her manner to have such a strong and invasive presence. It was the sort of intent that could be sensed a mile away – he wondered if she was like this on the field, too. "Magami Shizuka," she introduced herself, finally, and nodded brusquely at him. "And I'll take it on compelling evidence that you're one of the Gekkou clan. I can't imagine you're in ANBU with that fancy getup." She jerked her head, pointed nose up, at his hakama and kimono top. Despite her abrasive speech – or possibly because of it – Ken'ichirou found her somewhat entertaining. He smiled a little, self-deprecatingly.

"I'm afraid I'm not the sort for the ranks of ANBU," he admitted, shaking his head, and sheathed his sword at last. "My name is Gekkou Ken'ichirou. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance." He bowed at the waist, a pointed show of respect greater than hers. His family was a stickler for tradition, and it showed in the way he spoke and moved.

Shizuka merely snorted. "Don't give me that nicey-nice crap," she scoffed, tossing her head. "So, can you actually use that thing, or are your pretty little sword dances just for show?"

It was clearly a challenge, but Ken'ichirou wasn't as ready to jump on the bait as some of his other peers might have been. He merely inclined his head, placing his hand over the hilt of his sword. "I've come back from all of my missions alive, as you can see, so doesn't that speak to some level of skill?"

She snorted again, a breath through her nose, and cracked her knuckles. Ken'ichirou briefly got the mental image of an angry bull pawing the ground just before its charge, but he had a feeling that any young woman wouldn't appreciate that sort of comparison. She grinned widely at him again, licking her teeth. "Yeah, well, we'll see about that. Why don't I put your skills to the test?"

Ken'ichirou took a half step back, away from the young woman who was clearly itching for a fight. "I'm armed with a sharp and deadly weapon. You're fighting with just your bare hands. That's hardly fair, don't you think?"

"No one ever said the battlefield was fair," Shizuka retorted, tugging up her sleeves. Her mind already seemed to be set on fighting him. "Let's go for a little spar, shall we? And then we'll see how strong your fancy sword is against my _bare hands_!"

Ken'ichirou barely had time to react before she came at him, hands out like the tiger's paws. He wanted to avoid inflicting any injury on this overzealous kunoichi from the Magami family, and so he resisted drawing – but her hammer fist came down with surprising force for someone so lithely built, and his hastily thrown block failed to absorb all of the force with it. He stepped back sharply, trying to keep his balance, but she came at him with another blow, then another – it was a merciless flurry of fists and feet, and it was all Ken'ichirou could do to keep his own equilibrium in the sparring match. Shizuka certainly seemed to be a girl of fighting integrity, and of skill – she used her family's techniques well and effectively. Sure, she was haughty and critical, but it seemed she could at least hold up her end of the big talk.

Spotting a small opening in her endless barrage of attacks, Ken'ichirou parried her arm away from his body and leapt backward, landing neatly on the thick branch of a nearby tree. Shizuka reacted almost immediately, shaking out her hands and giving him a half-smirk, half-snarl from the ground.

"Come on, Gekkou, draw your sword!" she barked. "Or are you still afraid you'll hurt me?"

"I won't draw against a fellow shinobi of the Leaf," Ken'ichirou called, straightening up on the branch. "I don't see any point to needless injuries when we're not even on the battlefield."

Shizuka hmphed, quite vehemently, and launched herself up the side of the tree. Ken'ichirou was observant enough to notice the crackle of chakra in her feet before she'd even started running, and when the pointed strike to his head came, he was ready for it – and he could dodge it. Still managing to keep his balance, he listed slightly to the left. He could feel the slight whoosh of air as Shizuka's hand nearly grazed his cheek. The two of them precariously perched on the tree branch, he dodged blow after blow, smiling somewhat serenely to himself now that he'd gotten the hang of it. Now that he could see past the flurried speed of Shizuka's attacks, he could note that her fighting style was actually rather rough-hewn and sloppy; she just moved so fast that it was hard to tell. Once he'd gotten accustomed to the way she moved, he could predict her attacks.

What he _didn't_ predict was that instead of retracting her hand after that last blow, she made a clawed grab for the vulnerable junction between his throat and shoulder. Thrown off his guard, Ken'ichirou failed to react in time to keep her from closing both hands around his throat. This was the signature of the Magami style, he knew – Shizuka's clan was famous for ending their enemies' lives in this way.

Ken'ichirou wasn't entirely sure what happened next – the next thing he knew, he was plummeting to the ground with Shizuka's long-fingered hands wrapped around his neck, and when he finally hit the ground, he hit it _hard_. The breath whooshed from his lungs, and Shizuka kneeling on his chest, lording over him with that wildly triumphant feral grin, wasn't helping him any. Ken'ichirou wheezed, pawing at her hands and trying to breathe, and she rolled off of him and to her feet, shaking her hands out again. Ken'ichirou rolled onto his side, coughing and trying to coax the breath back into his lungs, blinking away the stars that had exploded in front of his eyes. He wasn't too hurt – just a little sore – the thing that had been most injured was his pride.

When he finally got his breath back and sat up, rubbing his back, Shizuka was still standing there, smirking down at him with her hands on her hips. "You've got no sense of practical application, Gekkou," she half-spat, half-snorted, and walked away shaking her head, just leaving him there. Ken'ichirou watched her go in mildly dazed confusion, wondering just what that had been all about.


End file.
